this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2024
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Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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[–] whaleross@lemmy.world 37 points 5 days ago (8 children)

Interesting. It's like those data centers that ran on thousands of Xboxes

[–] Cyber@feddit.uk 16 points 5 days ago (7 children)

Wha?

(searches interwebs)

Wow, that completely passed me by...

[–] Grimpen@lemmy.ca 29 points 5 days ago (6 children)

I think it was PS3 that shipped with "Other OS" functionality, and were sold a little cheaper than production costs would indicate, to make it up on games.

Only thing is, a bunch of institutions discovered you could order a pallet of PS3's, set up Linux, and have a pretty skookum cluster for cheap.

I'm pretty sure Sony dropped "Other OS" not because of vague concerns of piracy, but because they were effectively subsidizing supercomputers.

Don't know if any of those PS3 clusters made it onto Top500.

[–] infeeeee@lemm.ee 25 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

It was 33rd in 2010:

In November 2010, the Air Force Research Laboratory created a powerful supercomputer, nicknamed the "Condor Cluster", by connecting together 1,760 consoles with 168 GPUs and 84 coordinating servers in a parallel array capable of 500 trillion floating-point operations per second (500 TFLOPS). As built, the Condor Cluster was the 33rd largest supercomputer in the world and was used to analyze high definition satellite imagery at a cost of only one tenth that of a traditional supercomputer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_cluster

https://scx2.b-cdn.net/gfx/news/hires/playstations.jpg

https://phys.org/news/2010-12-air-playstation-3s-supercomputer.html

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 5 days ago

OMG I can feel the heat emanating from that photo

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